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Second rate is never an option

Each day, the airlines achieve the remarkable by safely moving nearly ten million people around the world. To achieve this day-in, day-out, airlines have to make the highly complex seem simple. They cannot afford to get it wrong. So I take great pride knowing every major airline in the world trusts their communication needs to SITA.

In my role of gatekeeper for SITA communications and infrastructure business I get to appreciate the sheer scale and complexities of these operations which extends to almost every inhabitable part of the world.

If a flight goes there, it is highly likely that SITA’s infrastructure provides the communication traffic between the different parties that make it happen, be it the airline, airport, air traffic management or ground handlers. In fact, we deliver more than 30 billion business critical messages each year over a network covering 95% of all international destinations.

Scale matters, because airlines need to know our communications infrastructure is available to support their growth plans - whether that is a totally new route or more flights from an existing airport.

But so does reliability. Our network business has exceptionally high performance, security and availability, as it must do to ensure 3.6 billion people reach their destination each year.

Partnering with the best

To underpin it we work with only internationally recognized telecom carriers. For example, Orange Business Services is positioned as a leader in Gartner’s 2016 Magic Quadrant for Global Network Services.

The challenge is to stay at the forefront - continuously improve on this performance in what is a very dynamic industry.

This year we have embarked on a program to strengthen the industry’s communications capabilities, particularly at the more than 1,000 airports, where we have network connections.

We are using this unique global presence to develop more community-specific services. Services that make collaboration and data sharing much easier between airlines, airports and other entities. This should drive operational efficiencies and act as a springboard for developing new services for passengers.

We are also putting in place the technology infrastructure and services to ensure the high levels of connectivity and security needed to support new bandwidth demanding applications. This has been a particular bugbear with airlines flying to remote regions where local infrastructure may not be robust enough.

World. Class.

It is through listening to our customers that we have built up a deep understanding of their business needs. Undoubtedly that is helped by the fact we are owned by the customers we serve – it makes for a strong bond.

It also means our customers have a vested interest in making sure we are working for their benefit.

And that is very much the case. SITA is focused entirely on serving our customers’ needs. This single focus allows us to excel – to be world class. And as such it gives our customers peace of mind, enabling them to focus on making the complex seem simple to the millions of travelers each and every day.